Post by VeeVee on Nov 13, 2008 9:01:07 GMT -5
News item sent in by Mike Houlahan
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Death March, Japanese camp survivors disband group
By Jose Katigbak
STAR Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON- A dwindling group of Bataan Death March and Japanese prison camp survivors disbanded itself for lack of able-bodied members after commemorating for the lat time on Tuesday Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery, closing a 62-year-old-tradition.
Lester Tenney, 88, commander of the organization American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, told the Washington Post as few as 100 or so survivors of the World War II Death March were still alive and none had the energy or inclination to lead the group he has headed since May.
Tenney, who lives in San Diego, visited America’s most hallowed ground a few miles from the Capitol and the White House to declare an end to the survivors’ group and make one last appeal to Japan for an official apology that the group has demanded for more than six decades or compensation from Japanese companies that enslaved prisoners of war.
“I’m through,” said Tenney, who has had triple bypass surgery and prostate cancer and suffers from irregular heartbeat. His other group members are worn out, sick and bent with age.
Also in attendance at the commemoration presided over by Vice President Dick Cheney were Filipino veterans Albert Bacani, 98, Joaquin Tejada, 85 and Guillermo Rumingan, 83.
They were accompanied by Eric Lachica, executive director of the American Coalition of Filipino Veterans (ACFV), which has been actively lobbying the US Congress for full veterans’ benefits and recognition for the wartime services of about 18,000 Filipinos.
Tenney was 21 in April 1942 when about 12,000 US and 63,000 Filipino soldiers surrendered in Bataan. The following month allied forces also surrendered in Corregidor.
Japanese guards forcibly marched the prisoners through tropical heat with little or no food and water in one of the most brutal episodes in the annals of war, the Washington Post said.
It said Tenney barely escaped death when a guard on horseback slashed his back with a sword during the march, which lasted 12 days and covered 108 kilometers.
After the Death March he was put on one of the “hell ships” that transported prisoners to camps in Japan where he said he was enslaved for nearly three years in a coal mine owned by the Japanese company Mitsui.
When Tenney was liberated at the end of the war, he was 98 pounds, half his normal weight.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
Vol XXIII No 109
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Page 3
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Death March, Japanese camp survivors disband group
By Jose Katigbak
STAR Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON- A dwindling group of Bataan Death March and Japanese prison camp survivors disbanded itself for lack of able-bodied members after commemorating for the lat time on Tuesday Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery, closing a 62-year-old-tradition.
Lester Tenney, 88, commander of the organization American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, told the Washington Post as few as 100 or so survivors of the World War II Death March were still alive and none had the energy or inclination to lead the group he has headed since May.
Tenney, who lives in San Diego, visited America’s most hallowed ground a few miles from the Capitol and the White House to declare an end to the survivors’ group and make one last appeal to Japan for an official apology that the group has demanded for more than six decades or compensation from Japanese companies that enslaved prisoners of war.
“I’m through,” said Tenney, who has had triple bypass surgery and prostate cancer and suffers from irregular heartbeat. His other group members are worn out, sick and bent with age.
Also in attendance at the commemoration presided over by Vice President Dick Cheney were Filipino veterans Albert Bacani, 98, Joaquin Tejada, 85 and Guillermo Rumingan, 83.
They were accompanied by Eric Lachica, executive director of the American Coalition of Filipino Veterans (ACFV), which has been actively lobbying the US Congress for full veterans’ benefits and recognition for the wartime services of about 18,000 Filipinos.
Tenney was 21 in April 1942 when about 12,000 US and 63,000 Filipino soldiers surrendered in Bataan. The following month allied forces also surrendered in Corregidor.
Japanese guards forcibly marched the prisoners through tropical heat with little or no food and water in one of the most brutal episodes in the annals of war, the Washington Post said.
It said Tenney barely escaped death when a guard on horseback slashed his back with a sword during the march, which lasted 12 days and covered 108 kilometers.
After the Death March he was put on one of the “hell ships” that transported prisoners to camps in Japan where he said he was enslaved for nearly three years in a coal mine owned by the Japanese company Mitsui.
When Tenney was liberated at the end of the war, he was 98 pounds, half his normal weight.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
Vol XXIII No 109
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Page 3